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Taste of Methodology - Creating Data Visualizations

Taste of Methodology is a series of brief, semiannual workshops for Penn State faculty. Our objective is to provide an efficient way for you to assess a method’s potential for your research, and we even provide lunch. In this semester’s workshop, Patrick Dudas, data visualization software engineer for The Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Institute for CyberScience, Eberly College of Science at Penn State, will demonstrate and discuss the creation of data visualizations.

Data Visualization: Better Storytelling with Your Data

PRESENTER: Patrick Dudas, data visualization software engineer for The Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Institute for CyberScience, Eberly College of Science at Penn State
DATE: Thursday, December 13, 2018, 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
LOCATION: Bennett Pierce Living Center, 110 Henderson Building

Data visualizations can be a powerful means to translate difficult and/or novel topics into meaningful visual representations, making them more universally understandable by various audiences. Especially in fields that use large data sets, visualizations enable researchers to explore their data to find and highlight high-level patterns not visible at the data level. The concepts in data visualization can span disciplines, including human cognition, art, and data science. In this workshop we will discuss how various concepts combine when people create effective visualizations. The workshop will demonstrate that there are much more than graphs found in Microsoft Excel.

By the end of the workshop, participants should have a strong grasp on the complete design "life cycle" for their own work and research.

The three-hour workshop will provide

a list of basic “things to consider” when creating effective graphs/visualizations;

high-level introductions to various software packages, including Tableau, gplot2, D3.js, Plotly, and Vega-lite;

discussion of a new concept, "Explorable Explanations;"

examples of how visualizations can be use in virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality; and

lunch!

Who should attend?

This workshop is aimed at faculty and postdoctoral researchers who are interested in data visualization.

A Taste of Methodology is co-sponsored by the Social Science Research Institute and the Methodology Center and is part of SSRI's Innovative Methods Initiative. The workshop is FREE and open to all Ph.D.-level scientists at Penn State. Registration is required and places are limited. Email Tammy Knepp (TLKnepp@psu.edu) to register or ask questions.